Night Time Obs, Feint Fuzzy... Options

[djellison]

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...E1P2741L1M1.JPG

Odd patch of fuzz in there - any ideas?

694 p2741.05 10 0 0 10 2 22 pancam_nighttime_opacity_L1R1


Doug

[Roby72]

I think its the LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud)

Robert

[alan]

That ould be my guess too
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980124.html

[ustrax]

That ould be my guess too
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980124.html

Spirit is on Mars watching stars that carry the name of a Man who circumnavigate Earth 486 years ago...This makes me wonder around what will our descendents be observing 486 from now on...

http://www.madeira.ws/img/history/portugal...o_magalhaes.jpg

[ustrax]

That ould be my guess too
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980124.html

It looks like it a lot, I've enhanced Spirit's image a bit:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/ustrax/mag.jpg

[RNeuhaus]

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...E1P2741L1M1.JPG

That picture show three types of imaging:

1) Many dots
2) Many vertical, diagonal and horizontal strikes
3) A fuzz patch (Cloud of Magellan)

The question are :
a) The dots ones are the stars?,
The ones of vertical strikes are meteorites falling to Mars?
c) The ones of diagonal or horizontal strikes are the celestial fast motions such as comet?

It is strange for me to see three kind of objects in one picture and am curious to know about them

Rodolfo

[ustrax]

That picture show three types of imaging:

1) Many dots
2) Many vertical, diagonal and horizontal strikes
3) A fuzz patch (Cloud of Magellan)

The question are :
a) The dots ones are the stars?,
The ones of vertical strikes are meteorites falling to Mars?
c) The ones of diagonal or horizontal strikes are the celestial fast motions such as comet?

It is strange for me to see three kind of objects in one picture and am curious to know about them 

Rodolfo

I don't understand anything of this but it looks to me that their all stars, but with the exposure time being larger the rotation of Mars makes them look like that...If you flip the image 90º to the left you'll that those running lights form an arc...
Geez...With this explanation you'll get more confused...

[Bill Harris]

Here is a medium-field photo image of the LMC/SMC. The Martian South Celestial Pole is in Volans, so I've rotated this image so that the SCP is to the left, as it is in the Spirit image. I base this orientation on the arcs of the star trails.

Although I can't match up stars in the two images, my feeling is that this may be an image of the LMC.

Photo source: http://www.southernskyphoto.com/southern_sky/lmc_smc.htm .

--Bill

[AndyG]

The ones arranged as short arcs to a circle whose centre is off to the left are stars. Mars has rotated in the few minutes the shutter was open.

The single-point speckles which look like stars are probably noise in the camera electronics.

The streaks which run at angles not parallel to nearby star-arcs are probably cosmic ray hits, less probably meteors.

Ummm...I think.

Andy G

[um3k]

Ummm...I think.

Andy G

I concur.

[um3k]

Here is an animation with the stars aligned to another image:



1st and 3rd frames: Spirit's astrophotograph
2nd frame: image from here
4th frame: same as frame 2, with artificial motion blur to better match Spirit's image

EDIT: Please let me know whether or not this animation works for you.

[Bill Harris]

Your animation works very well. The ISS image of the Large Magellanic cloud is exactly what I had been looking for. The distinctive landmark is that grouping of stars on the right and the image I found didn't show that landmark.

--Bill

[mars loon]

I think its the LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud)

Robert

Wow, you are good

Cornell team confirms it is LMC

ken

[AndyG]

That's a lovely animation...thanks! (I've spent ages trying to Google an online starchart that isn't blinkin' astrologically related...)

Andy G

[mars loon]

Cornell team confirms it is LMC

and there is a bit more ....... from Cornell Imaging Team

"At 180,000 light years, it's a new Pancam photon distance record (intentional, at least--who knows if we've seen any extragalactic cosmic rays) and perhaps the first recorded observation of an extragalactic source from the surface of another planet".